


The Sadder but Wiser Girl

by Silvestria



Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, First Love, Regency, Summer Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:56:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6886636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvestria/pseuds/Silvestria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is summer and sixteen year old Viola Fitzgerald is not yet the Incomparable she will become. Neighbour and friend, Will Devenish is in the right place at the right time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sadder but Wiser Girl

_September 1804_  
  
The day Will Devenish left for the new term at Eton, Lady Viola Fitzgerald cried in her room for two hours. When she had finished crying, she splashed her face, changed her dress and went to look for her mother.  
  
The Countess of Rotherham was in her pretty, private sitting room doing needle point. She looked up at her elder daughter’s entrance and smiled. Viola smiled back but with a little less vivacity than normal and crossed the room to sit next to her mother on the sofa.  
  
“What do you think, darling?” said Lady Rotherham, holding up her work. “Is it improving?”  
  
Viola half smiled. “It does look more like a forget-me-not and less like a blue parasol.”  
  
“There! I knew it would eventually!”  
  
Viola did not reply, but she presently leaned sideways and awkwardly rested her head on Lady Rotherham’s shoulder. It had been a long time since she had done so. Girls of sixteen did not tend to embrace their parents in this way. Her shoulder seemed lower than Viola remembered it. A few seconds later, her mother put her sewing down and her arm round Viola’s shoulders. They sat like that in silence for a long time, or perhaps only a few minutes.  
  
Eventually the Countess squeezed her shoulders and said, “There, there, Viola, enough of this. The afternoon will be over before we know it! Now,” she made her sit up straight and face her, “you remember that the Tilby-Wainwrights are coming to dinner tomorrow. How would you like to choose the menu?”  
  
It was some time since Viola had been allowed to choose the menu for a dinner party. Such minor feats of organisation had always been a reward in her childhood. Since reaching adolescence, however, they had seemed a bit of a bore. But now she smiled. “I’d like that, Mama.”  
  
“Then shall we go to the kitchens and see what options Mrs. Denby can give us?”  
  
“All right.”  
  
If Lady Rotherham had noticed her daughter’s red eyes, had been surprised by her sudden affection, had suspected that her young heart had been bruised for the first time or had connected these symptoms with Master Devenish’s departure from the county, then she made no comment either that day or at any other time.  
  
*  
  
It had started, as many things started, with Viola being unnecessarily rude.  
  
“Hello, Viola,” Will had said, seeing her for the first time that summer.  
  
“You should call me Lady Viola now,” she had replied.  
  
“Act like one and I just might!” He raised an eyebrow at her and leaned against the wall in a very nonchalant fashion.  
  
“What would you know about how ladies act, William Devenish? Seen plenty of them at school?”  
  
Ten year old Olivia looked from one to the other, her mouth slightly open.  
  
Viola noticed her sister. “Come along, Liv. We don’t want to keep Master William waiting. I’m sure he has plenty of fascinating things to do.” She grabbed Olivia’s hand and led her away, only looking back once, one eyebrow provocatively raised.  
  
“Why does he have to call you Lady Viola now?” asked Olivia. “As if you were all grown up. I hope he doesn’t start calling me Lady Olivia! It would be very silly.”  
  
Viola did not know why she had been rude to him. Will was her friend and always had been. And all he had said was “Hello, Viola”. An absence of several months could not change a person so much, that she would get irritated just by a greeting. And yet he had seemed taller somehow, and broader, and his hair had flopped strangely over his forehead and it annoyed her, so she had snapped. When put like that, it made perfect sense.  
  
The next time she saw him, she was out riding alone and met him in the Park. He was riding too. He raised his whip and waved. “No chaperone, Lady Viola?” he called, teasing.  
  
She trotted closer. “Don’t be silly, Will- I don’t need a chaperone! I’m not out yet. And this is Yorkshire, not London!”  
  
He pretended to doff an imaginary hat. “Oh, I beg your pardon. For a moment I thought you were a real lady!”  
  
She shook her head at him. “I didn’t mean it about calling me Lady Viola. I was only jesting.”  
  
He grinned. “I’m glad to hear it- I thought you’d gone all missish on me.”  
  
“There’s another year before I do that, Will.”  
  
There was a pause in which they both stared at each other. Viola felt awkward and was not sure why she should be. She had known him long enough. She began to fiddle with her reins.  
  
Eventually he cleared his throat. “Do you want to ride together a bit, Viola? I was just going to go down to the river and then back home.”  
  
“All right!” She grinned in relief. “Race you to the spinney!” Before he could reply she had whipped her horse on and was off at a canter.  
  
At the river they dismounted, tied up the horses and sat side by side on a low branch, their feet dangling over the water. Will had picked up some stones and threw one every now and then into the river.  
  
“How are you, Viola, really?” he asked. She turned to face him. There was a seriousness in his expression that made him seem older than his seventeen years, almost as if he really cared about her answer. She felt oddly warm and was surprised to find herself blushing.  
  
To hide her inexplicable embarrassment, she tossed her head and laughed. “Oh, I am very well- I am always very well; I’ve hardly changed since Easter, you know!”  
  
“I think you have changed.”  
  
She frowned. “How?”  
  
“I don’t know.” He threw a stone into the river. “You’re more, I don’t know… it’s more that you look at me differently.”  
  
She raised one eyebrow. “If I look at you differently perhaps that’s because you’re the one who’s changed, and not me!”  
  
She poked him in the chest and he grabbed her hand in mid poke. She stilled and stared at him. “What’re you doing, Will?”  
  
He swallowed and she noticed his Adam’s apple bob as he did so. He dropped her hand. “I don’t know.”  
  
“Don’t know many things, do you, William?” she taunted. “What on earth do they teach you at that school?”  
  
“You’re beautiful, Viola,” he interrupted her and immediately looked away, before glancing sideways at her to see her reaction. She frowned, and smiled, and looked terribly confused all in one. It was adorable.  
  
“They didn’t teach you that at Eton!” she blustered finally.  
  
“No, I didn’t need to be taught it. It’s true though.”  
  
“Nobody ever called me beautiful before,” she said thoughtfully, and threw a stone of her own into the river. “Apart from Mama of course. She says it so often that I’ve stopped believing her. But never a… a person not related to me.” She wanted to say “never a man” but she was embarrassed to. After all, Will was hardly a man yet. He was just like her, stuck somewhere in the in-between, waiting for life to start.  
  
He touched her hand. “Well, it’s just shocking that nobody has said so to you, since you are, very. Beautiful, that is.” He hesitated then asked her, “Would you mind if I told you so every now and then?”  
  
Viola laughed and squeezed his hand. “Of course not! Why would I mind being called beautiful?”  
  
He grinned at her. “I suppose you could consider it practice for all those compliments you’re bound to receive next year.”  
  
“Oh, yes, my debut! I suppose when a great Marquess tells me I’m beautiful I shouldn’t stare at him and mumble that nobody has ever said that before!”  
  
Will seemed to enjoy watching her. “How will you react then?”  
  
She raised one eyebrow, then straightened her back and stuck her nose in the air and said in a rather dismissive tone, “Why, Mr. Devenish, how very kind of you to say so!”  
  
Will snorted. “Is that really how ladies talk? You sounded like you had…” _a poker rammed up your…_ “you sounded unlike yourself!”  
  
“Miss Bartlett is convinced that not sounding like oneself is a necessary part of being a social success.”  
  
“I don’t like Miss Bartlett.”  
  
“Nobody does,” replied Viola airily. “But I think Cordelia followed similar advice- and it landed her my brother so there may well be something in it!”  
  
Will shrugged. “I hope you are always yourself with me.”  
  
She tilted her head on one side and looked at him, her eyes moving over his face with such a direct gaze that he blushed. “You’re growing up, Will,” she said finally.  
  
He leaned back a bit, resting his weight on his hands behind him, displaying his upper body to greatest advantage. “And what do you think?”  
  
She grinned and then looked away, suddenly serious. “I think we all have to grow up.”  
  
“Aw, come on, Vi- I said you were beautiful!”  
  
She pushed him away. “Is this what it’s all about? A compliment for a compliment? I thought you meant it, you know, but really you just wanted me to say something nice about you!” She jumped down from the branch. “I should go home. They’ll miss me. Give me a leg-up, will you?”  
  
He jumped down after her and grabbed her arm. “I didn’t mean it, Viola. You can say whatever you want to me, and think whatever you want about me!”  
  
They stared at each other for what seemed like a very long time. It was a tempting offer. Then Viola shivered and she removed Will’s hand gently from her arm. “I’m sorry. I really should go home now. Will you help me up?”  
  
“Any time.”  
  
They next met two days later. It was a very, very hot July afternoon. Miss Bartlett had given the girls the afternoon off since neither had been able to concentrate in the schoolroom even with all the windows open to cool it. Olivia had fidgeted with her dress until it was creased and had kept dropping her pencil. Viola had stared out of the window at the perfectly blue and cloudless sky. She could not keep her mind on the abolition of the monasteries. She wondered what Will was doing. The nice thing about going to school was that one had vacations. There were no vacations from a governess. She wondered if she had been too hard on him again. She did not mean to be. Her opinions changed every minute when she was with him. Everything she wanted to say to him came out wrong. She did not know what was wrong with her.  
  
Finally Miss Bartlett had let them off. Once outside, Olivia took off her shoes and stockings and stuck her feet in the fountain on the formal lawn. Viola also took off her shoes and wandered aimlessly in circles round the lawn. Miss Bartlett sat on a bench in the shade and flicked at flies. Soon she fell asleep with her handkerchief over her face. Olivia was now standing in the fountain, her dress bunched up at her knees, completely absorbed in trying to catch goldfish. Viola wandered further, between the rows of well clipped hedges and finally out of the formal gardens all together. There she met Will. His shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and he wore no coat.  
  
“What are you doing here?” she asked, suddenly wondering if she should have put her shoes back on before leaving the lawns. But the grass was so deliciously cool between her toes…  
  
“Charlie left his Latin dictionary at school, the simpleton, and so I came over to see if I might borrow one off your brothers.”  
  
Viola rolled her eyes. “Of course you can. But why rush back now? Let’s have a walk first. Besides, Miss Bartlett is sleeping and I wouldn’t want to wake her.”  
  
They set off along a track on the park side of the hedge.  
  
“I’m glad you came,” Viola said eventually. “I had nothing to do and all I could think about was you.”  
  
He raised one eyebrow. “Me?” He definitely sounded smug.  
  
“Yes, and I wanted to say that…” She stopped walking and turned to face him. Her eyes hit the spot of his chest where his shirt was undone. She quickly raised her eyes. “I’m not sure what I wanted to say!”  
  
He was looking at her with a curious expression on his face. She couldn’t place it and frowned, leaning forward slightly.  
  
“Viola…” and his voice sounded different. He reached out very tentatively and touched her cheek. Nobody had ever touched it quite so gently before.  
  
In that moment Viola realised what was going to happen and she blurted out, “Are you going to kiss me, Will?” Her voice sounded louder and blunter than she had intended it to be.  
  
His hand faltered and his eyes flickered downwards and back up again. “Would you mind awfully if I did?”  
  
Viola thought seriously about this. Or at least, she tried to. She could not think about anything at all in that moment, let alone seriously. Then she said more quietly this time, “No, I don’t think I’d mind,” in a considered kind of way. “If you wanted to.”  
  
He leaned forwards and kissed her. It was awkward and unschooled and they hardly embraced at all.  
  
When it was over, they stood opposite each other. Viola frowned and then licked her lips. It had been… odd. Not unpleasant. Interesting.  
  
“I’m sorry,” said Will, “I’m not sure if that’s what a kiss is meant to be like. Some of the other boys have said things about it… but I’ve never… I’ve never kissed a girl before.”  
  
“Well,” suggested Viola, “we could always try again!”  
  
So they did. This time he put his arms round her and she dared to touch his face with one hand and put her other hand on the back of his neck. This seemed to affect him in some way and he pulled her closer, which was a bit alarming, but after a few minutes she got used to it. It was nice to be that close to someone. Afterwards she rested her head on his shoulder and he kept his arms round her. She rather thought she preferred that to the actual kissing.  
  
A little later, when the sun was lower in the sky and Viola became aware that her toes were getting cold, they returned to the gardens, hand in hand.  
  
“We should meet again,” said Will, when she let go of his hand because they could be seen from the house.  
  
“Yes. I was going to ride tomorrow. We could go somewhere together, if you liked?”  
  
“All right.” There was a pause before Will added, “I’ll meet you by the old horse-chestnut tree after lunch tomorrow then?”  
  
“Yes. Good bye, Will.”  
  
“Good bye, Viola.”  
  
She turned around and walked across the lawn, looking back several times. She put a finger to her lips and smiled.

Later that evening, it occurred to Viola that she would never be able to have a first kiss again. She was not sure how she felt about that. She had never thought about kissing much before. When she had thought about it, she had assumed that she would not be kissed before she accepted a proposal of marriage. These scenarios always played out as if she were the heroine of a sentimental novel. Her lover was a tall and handsome gentleman with dark hair, a title and lots of money. Like Lord Orville, he was very, very witty and entertaining but he never actually demonstrated this wit in any of Viola’s nebulous fantasies. Instead he would fling himself on the floor and clasp her knees rather like Ulysses had supplicated the Princess Nausicaa. He would pour forth a stream of rhetoric involving phrases such as “would to heaven thou wouldst be mine!” This would be all so affecting that Viola would promptly burst into tears. Then, after she had confessed her love to him (she was not entirely sure how she would do this as authors often seemed to skip this important part of the dialogue), he would stand up and kiss her. Again, she was not sure how he would go about it, but it would probably make her faint. Heroines were always fainting at this point in novels.  
  
Viola now considered that the novels might not be entirely reliable. It had always seemed to her odd that a simple kiss might make her faint, since she had never fainted in all her life before and had no intention to start when she was being kissed. Now she knew just how untrue the novels were. When Will had kissed her, she had not felt any faintness at all. It had been pleasant and she was looking forward to doing it again, but fainting… no. Being a practical and unsentimental girl, she decided that the lack of fainting was probably a good thing. She also hoped that if the novels were wrong about the fainting then they were wrong about the crying. Viola could not imagine any rational man would truly want her to burst into tears when he proposed to her. She was, however, conscious of a certain disappointment that she could not explain away.  
  
The heat-wave continued for another three weeks. During this time, Viola and Will met nearly every day to walk or ride together. Their kissing improved a good deal. They kissed sitting down and standing up. They even managed a quick peck on horse back though they decided afterwards that it probably was not worth the risk to repeat it.  
  
In the months afterwards, Viola thought it amazing that nobody saw them together. However, they were very careful never to be in sight of either of their houses and to check very carefully in all directions if they did anything more intimate that walking side by side. Besides, nobody seemed to suspect a thing.  
  
“It’s almost as if they don’t think such a thing is possible!” Viola complained to Will one day when they were walking together in the orchard at Apple Brook.  
  
“Why should they suspect anything?” asked Will reasonably. “We have always been together all our lives. There’s nothing suspicious per se in your riding over here to ask to see me.”  
  
“No, of course not. _Per se_.”   
  
“Then what are you worrying about? Nobody has seen us, and nobody cares anyway!”  
  
Viola frowned. It did not seem right somehow. It was not quite what she wanted, whatever that was. She let him kiss her anyway though, but she kept her eyes open and kept looking towards his house out of the corner of her eyes, imagining what would happen if his mother or father came out and saw them. Or even if Charlie came out, stared at them and then ran back inside to tell everyone what he had seen.  
  
Later on, Will took her hand. “You’re still upset, I can tell. Look, Viola, if anybody did see us, then I’d marry you in an instant!”  
  
Viola burst out laughing and he froze. “I would, of course I would!”  
  
“But you can’t possibly want to marry me. I understand, of course,” she continued, seeing how offended he was, “that you would if you had to. But that doesn’t mean you have to want to.”  
  
Will was silent for a moment. Viola bit her lip. She supposed laughing was insensitive, but really, it was absurd. He was seventeen!  
  
“What you mean,” he said eventually, “is that _you_ don’t want to marry _me_.”  
  
“No,” she replied and realised that it was the truth. Whatever she felt about Will, and she did not really know what she did feel for him, she did not want to marry him. She had thought after their first assignation that kissing did not, after all, have anything to do with marriage. Now she reviewed this view again. Did her kissing Will mean she ought to feel obliged to marry him? Miss Bartlett and her predecessors had never spoken about kissing, embracing and the like. She supposed it had not seemed necessary. She thought spitefully that probably her governesses did not have much practical experience of it. Viola’s understanding of the matter came from her own observation and from novels. In _Tom Jones_ there had been a good deal of embracing (and more!) which had very little to do with marriage. Molly Seagrim had lost her character and had become with child, but Viola did not think that kissing alone led to childbirth. If it did, then a man would not be permitted to kiss his bride before the wedding. Besides, Tom kissed Sophia without being engaged to her and she never seemed to object.  
  
Will’s voice roused her from her thoughts. “Why don’t you want to marry me, if I may ask?”  
  
Viola shook her head and laughed. “I suppose… I suppose you are not rich enough!”   
  
It was not just that, but it was a large part of it. When Viola pictured her future, it was as mistress of a great house, not unlike the one she currently lived in. She would have hordes of servants at her beck and call. When she entered a ballroom during the season on the arm of her aforementioned tall, dark, handsome and incredibly witty husband, all eyes would turn towards her. She would give a condescending nod and all of the society would immediately stoop to follow every fashion she set. Not that she was particularly interested in fashion. That was not the point. She did not intend to spend her life as Lady Viola Devenish, mistress of a rather rundown Tudor estate, shadowed by Rotherham Hall, living with her in-laws and always under her mother’s feet. More importantly, she had no intention of marrying a seventeen year old schoolboy.  
  
“I didn’t think that of you, Viola,” said Will. He sounded sad. The laughter had been ill-judged.  
  
“Why not? My father is an Earl. I have a fortune of £45,000. You know that. You will only get a baronetcy when your father dies- and that may not be for years! The match is too unequal. And we are far too young. You must be practical.”  
  
He dropped her hand. “I had no idea you were so cold.”  
  
“Cold? I am being realistic- one of us ought to be!”  
  
It was their first proper quarrel. Viola thought about it almost constantly during the two days before she saw him again. Was she cold? She did not think she was. It made her very unhappy to have him think so. Did she not tell him everything completely honestly? Did she not put her arms round him and kiss him? Did she not listen to all his complaints about his father’s drunkenness and the lack of money in the household and smooth his hair from his forehead and tell him that soon he would be his own man and would not have to deal with the situation? Was this the behaviour of a cold and heartless girl?  
  
Viola merely thought that marriage had very little to do with these feelings. Marriage was a contract for the betterment of both parties and for the purpose of continuing a line. One married to improve one’s situation not to make it worse! Naturally Viola had no intention of marrying someone she did not like (this would hardly be an improvement), but she was sure that there would be lots of very rich men in London whom she would like. The capital was probably stuffed with handsome young Lords who were just waiting for someone like her to come along. It was in novels anyway. Of course, for every Mr. Mortimer Delvile, there were always at least two Sir Robert Floyers, but Mr. Delvile always put in an appearance eventually.  
  
She brought the subject up with her sister. “Who do you want to marry, Liv?”  
  
Olivia thought about this and then answered with great composure, “A man.”  
  
Viola rolled her eyes. “Anything more specific?”  
  
“A nice man. Someone who won’t make me do lessons all the time. And who will make me laugh.”  
  
This sounded quite sensible. Viola added “will make me laugh” to her list of requisites. “Do you- do you think money and status should have anything to do with it?”  
  
She wrinkled her nose. “Not really. I am very rich after all. Why should it matter what my husband has?”  
  
Olivia, Viola thought, was far too young to understand these things properly.  
  
She went to find Will herself the next day to apologise. She hung about his neck and pleaded with him and stroked his cheek and gazed at him with her most winsome smiles and it was not long until he forgave her and promised not to mention marriage again, if she would only know that he would marry her, if he had to. Their kisses that afternoon had something more of urgency to them, and Viola found herself more out of breath than she had been previously.  
  
Things progressed from there as they might be expected to. Viola and Will met each other more often and would have met even more so if Viola had not been so cautious. This irritated Will. “If you really loved me you would not care about being seen.”  
  
Viola told him that she cared about being seen _because_ she loved him. Would they be allowed to continue on in this way if they were seen? He must be reasonable!  
  
Will put his arms round her, as they sat under a horse-chestnut tree, rested his head on her chest and kissed her neck. Then he raised his head to meet her eyes. “But you do love me?”  
  
She smiled and ruffled his hair. “I’ve always loved you, Will. Why are you surprised?”  
  
Will pulled himself up to sit next to her. He took her hands. “I’m _in love_ with you, Viola. You know I’d marry you if you’d only let me say it. I don’t think you really know what that means.” His expression was a mixture of frustration and youthful eagerness.  
  
Viola’s heart leaped and she swallowed her frustration at his assumption of her ignorance. She touched his face gently. “I do know what it means. And I do love you, you may be sure of it.”  
  
However, as August days grew shorter and Viola and Will found themselves sitting in the shade of haystacks instead of trees, avoiding prickly hay instead of prickly baby conkers, she could not help feel fatalistically pessimistic about their relationship. Will loved her. She was sure of it. Sometimes when she was alone and in a sentimental mood, she imagined life with him. Lady Viola Devenish was not so unattractive a prospect as it had once seemed. Apple Brook was a delightful property. One could hardly imagine a more warm-hearted mother-in-law than Lady Devenish. Charlie was already as much her little brother as anyone could be- what would change? Her feelings wavered and fluctuated yet something stopped her from believing in the dream.   
  
She could probably tolerate being Will’s wife, but his love was not enough. She wished it were. She did love him back as well, she felt certain. He was familiar and kind and her heart beat faster when she saw him. She loved to feel his arms round about her. Even so, she could never forget the inequality of the match, and their youth, even when she was with him. Men’s characters changed so much between being a school boy and being a man- she had seen it happen to her brothers. Will would change too and his ardour would cool. Moreover, the fact that she constantly had to restrain him when they were together irritated her. How could she enjoy their kissing if she was constantly worried about where he was putting his hands? Then he would accuse her of coldness and hypocrisy. She let him kiss her, why wouldn’t she permit him any further liberties? How could she love him if she did not want anything else?  
  
Viola was more upset by these complaints than she let on because she felt they were valid. Though she felt that she must love him, her love clearly was not good enough. She clearly lacked some quality that she ought to have. She ought to want Will more than she did. She did enjoy kissing him but she did not see why she should also want him to touch her breast- for a start, his hands were either too hot and sticky or too cold. And even though she had explained them several times, she still could not understand how he could not see her objections to a marriage between them. They were so obvious to her and so reasonable, yet he treated her comprehension of them as some kind of proof of her indifference.   
  
It all seemed to come down to the fact that Will did not seem to believe that she loved him as much as he loved her and she had run out of ways that she could prove it. Maybe she did not love him. Maybe she was incapable of such feelings. She knew instinctively that her love for her family was sincere and deep, but that was a different thing it seemed to love for a man. She did not think Cordelia and Richard loved each other very much but they were a suitable match in all the rational ways of which she was so fond. Marriage did not have anything to do with love. And yet… and yet she looked up to her parents’ marriage as an ideal and they certainly loved each other and loved her and her siblings. She did not know what to think. Inconclusive ideas and theories repeated themselves in her brain and she changed her mind as often as she changed the direction in which she aimlessly wandered around the estate, lost in thought.   
  
Her first season loomed over her. Would she marry? Whom would she marry? This depended, of course, on her being asked. Viola was pretty sure that _somebody_ would ask her. After all, she was very rich. Will might call her beautiful and she herself thought herself much better looking than some of the girls she knew but Viola knew that a brown complexion was not fashionable and that she was neither delicately petite nor willowy and tall. Men apparently preferred ladies with blonde hair and vacant blue eyes. Viola simply wished to know what would happen. She was tired and nervous from waiting. She did not know what to expect from a season. She wanted to be admired. She wanted to catch a rich husband and gain her security for life as well as a comfortable home. But a very strong part of her dreaded it as much as she anticipated it. What if he were not kind to her? What if even after she married him she preferred Will? What if she simply did not like any of her suitors? What if she did not take after all and nobody asked her? Would she be allowed to refuse someone even if he were eligible? Then she frowned. If he were eligible, what possible motive could she have for refusing him? Did she want to fall in love with her husband after all? That would be a great inconvenience and realistically not at all likely to happen. Besides, if she married anyone for love she would marry Will. But maybe she was incapable of it anyway. So her train of thought folded back in on itself. She held onto the fact that the season would make everything clear: when she was finally out and in society, she would know her own mind.  
  
In the meantime, summer turned into autumn and the boys had to return to school, Will for the last time. The Latin dictionary that had been borrowed at the beginning of the summer was finally used for homework. Holes in gowns were mended. Trunks were packed and then repacked. Final tea parties took place at Rotherham and Apple Brook in which Viola sat opposite Will silently sipping tea and letting their parents carry the conversation, her stomach clenching itself in anticipation of what must happen.  
  
They met alone for the last time the day before he left by the river where they had first ridden at the beginning of the summer. Will had wanted to meet there. Viola acknowledged the suitability of the location but was a little embarrassed by the sentiment behind it.   
  
They stood opposite each other in silence. “You’ll be back at Christmas,” said Viola eventually.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“It’s only three months.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Three months is not a long time after all!”  
  
“Three months _is_ a long time, and- oh, Viola! I shall miss you. I shall miss you all the time I’m gone!”  
  
They moved together at the same time and held each other tightly. “I shall miss you too,” she murmured into his cravat.   
  
There was very little else to be said, but they said it all anyway. Differences of opinion, doubts and quarrels were forgotten. They thought only of the hours of happiness that they had spent that summer, of the long walks through the Park, the teasing, the riding, the shared confidences, the small intimacies and the terrifying mutual understanding of their dependency on each other. They promised that their feelings would not change, that they would write to each other every day (even Viola managed to be carried along on this fantasy), and that at Christmas everything would be just as it was now.  
  
Viola leaned up and pressed her lips to his. Relatively speaking it was a chaste kiss though they stayed together for quite some time. As she kissed him, she felt that for all their promises this would be the last time she would ever kiss him. _The next man I kiss_ , she thought as she drew back, leaving her hand pressed to his cheek, _will be my husband_.  
  
They were subdued when they parted and hardly spoke to each other the following morning when Will and Charlie called to say goodbye to the whole family. Viola watched the carriage all the way down the drive from her bedroom window. Then she burst into tears.

_July 1805_  
  
When William Devenish returned from his final term at Eton, he fully expected to find Lord Rotherham’s eldest daughter at home. He was destined to be disappointed. Lady Viola Fitzgerald had not just taken well in society, but had become one of the incomparable diamonds of the ton, hailed in both the highest and lowest echelons of society, the toast of both the Lords and Commons. Only Miss Dancy (whoever the devil she might be) had received similar levels of admiration. And even she was said to be too thin and not half as handsome, at least so claimed Lady Devenish with all the authority of having heard it from the naturally unbiased Lady Rotherham.  
  
The natural consequence of Lady Viola’s popularity was that she had been inundated with invitations to spend the summer with various friends, and Lady Rotherham had received many similar invitations from the hopeful mothers of unmarried young gentlemen. Instead of returning home to Yorkshire with her mother at the end of the season, Viola had accepted an invitation to stay a month with Lady Priscilla Tanaquil, daughter of the Earl of Filey at their estate in Surrey.  
  
“I was quite ready to come home myself,” explained the Countess to Will and Charlie one day shortly after their return, “for it had been a very tiring three months indeed. Very successful of course- I could not be prouder of her!- but tiring all the same. And if I am going to spend the summer in the country, I would much rather be at my own place where I know where everything is and can complain as much as I please!”  
  
“You are perfectly right, of course!” put in Lady Devenish.  
  
“Nevertheless, I think it was a good thing for Viola to accept one of the invitations and she did always like Lady Priscilla very much; her parents are unexceptionable, you know. Besides, it will be nice for her to see a little of the southern counties; she has travelled so little. And to get used to independence away from us.”  
  
“Oh yes, indeed!” said Lady Devenish.  
  
Olivia fidgeted. “ _I_ should like to see the southern counties too. I do think Viola might have taken me with her.”  
  
“You weren’t invited, darling,” remonstrated her mother. “You don’t even know Lady Priscilla. Your time will come.”  
  
“Well, I wish it would come sooner rather than later! I miss Viola!”  
  
“We’ll take you to the southern counties, won’t we, Charlie?” Will put in with a grin. “We’ll take you anywhere you like, Liv!”  
  
Charlie nodded vigorously and Will winked at the little girl whose face creased into a beaming smile.  
  
Will also missed Viola. Naturally, things had not been the same at Christmas. Frost and cold were not conducive to a relationship that depended on being outdoors and three months’ absence, if it had not changed the feelings themselves, had made them both too embarrassed to continue. Time had eventually shown them their behaviour in a more detached light. It had made them awkward with each other and wary. The companionable friendship they had enjoyed previously seemed to have gone too, though by the end of the vacation they had started to rebuild it. Nothing specific had passed between them, but first they had shared a glance, then a smile and finally a laugh. Christmas had been difficult however.  
  
Will’s heart still ached for her. He would not deny to himself that it had been most enjoyable at first to feel more experienced and superior to his school friends- that had been a perk of the affair, but most of all he missed his best friend. And he suspected that Lady Viola, the brightest diamond of the 1804 season, might well be rather different to the girl he had kissed by the river the previous summer. In his most private thoughts he hoped against hope that she would return unchanged and unspoiled. That she would have passed through society untouched by its corruption (not that he knew anything about society himself) but that she might return with the experience to know that she loved him and would marry him. That she was not engaged yet and had even refused a Duke gave him wild hope.  
  
The day she arrived back, Will purposefully did not call. There was no need to appear too eager. Besides, she would want to be with her family. The next day he left it until the afternoon before making a casual appearance around tea time.  
  
He wandered in the back entrance of the Hall from the stables unannounced, as had been his custom in earlier years. He found her in drawing room on the first floor. The door was partly open and he heard a voice. It belonged to Olivia. Will paused to listen.  
  
“But did they really all say those things? All of them?”  
  
He heard Viola reply, “Well, not all of them, I suppose. But it felt like that at the time. The first week I could not believe my ears- that so many people wanted to dance with me seemed incredible! Why, my card was full before I had even entered the rooms! But I’ve told you all about who I danced with that night.”  
  
“Yes!” cried Olivia eagerly, “Lord Linley and Mr. Trevethyn and the nasty, old Duke of Pennington and… and all those other people and they all thought you were the most beautiful lady they had ever seen and they thought your eyes were like liquid amber and your neck like a swan and your hair ravishing and-”  
  
“I’m sure I never mentioned any swans, but I’m very flattered you think I have a long, white, feathery neck that bends in an s-shape! Now be quiet, Liv. Didn’t you want to know what happened next?”  
  
“Sorry. What happened next?” Will also wanted to know, so he remained standing outside the door, ignoring the squeaks of moral outrage from his conscience. Her voice sounded just as it always had done.  
  
“The first week was perfectly wonderful and they said the nicest things about me in the Society News the following day. But I thought that would be it. I never expected that at the second Almack’s even more gentlemen would approach me for dances and cluster around me and vie to see who could compliment me most. I suppose they had read the Society News as well and wanted to see what the fuss was about. I did not know what to do with all my admirers, and neither indeed did Mama, and I did begin to find the whole thing ridiculous. I began to wonder if they had all been reading the same book.”  
  
“What book, Vi?”  
  
“On how to pay extravagant compliments, of course. For hardly any of them really seemed to care what I actually looked like. I am quite sure someone described my eyes in terms of a clear summer sky once.”  
  
“But your eyes are brown.” Olivia sounded puzzled. Will stifled a laugh and felt himself relaxing. Viola really had not cared for society or any of her admirers! Good old Viola!  
  
“Yes, exactly! Well, picture the scene if you will. I was in a corner of the ballroom, besieged by at least half a dozen of the most determined toadies and flatterers that ever crawl from the woodwork in April- fops and dandies and macaronis all. Each one of them in direct competition over me; really, the most absurd thing you can imagine.”  
  
“What did you do?”  
  
“I pleaded indisposition and slipped off to the retiring room, leaving Mama to deal with the men. (Poor Mama!) I thought I might get at least a few minutes to myself there. But no sooner had I left the ballroom than I was accosted by another young man.”  
  
“Another young man!”  
  
“Yes, another young man! And he started off on the familiar subject of my many charms. Oh, I forget now what he said exactly, but he went on and on about my beauty and how he had not been able to sleep knowing he had not yet seen for himself the most incomparable beauty of the season… and so forth, for several minutes I declare! And I, oh Liv, I could not help myself, he was so ridiculous! But I was so embarrassed afterwards- such a breach of etiquette- anyway, I laughed out loud in his face!”  
  
There was a gasp from Olivia. In the corridor Will found himself covering his mouth with his hand. She’d done it there!  
  
“You laughed in his face?” Olivia giggled. “I wish I had seen that! But what did he do? Was he very offended?”  
  
There was a brief pause before she replied and then Will could hear the smile in her tone. “You know, Livia, he laughed right back! And that was-”  
  
What exactly that was Will never found out, because at that moment he heard footsteps behind him. He turned guiltily and came face to face with the Countess, followed by a maid with a tray of tea things.  
  
“Will, dear,” she greeted him with a raised eyebrow and a much too knowing look, “why don’t you go in? Viola will want to see you, I know.”  
  
She pushed the door open and he followed her into the room.  
  
“Will!” cried Olivia, launching herself off the sofa and straight at him. “Viola’s home!”  
  
Will hugged the child and then raised his eyes to the young woman who had risen from the same sofa. She stood before him, a shaft of evening sunlight falling through the windows onto her dark hair and burnishing it. She looked no different in any material way to when he had last seen her in December, but she seemed infinitely changed to him. Was her back straighter? Was she taller? Was she stiller and calmer in the way she held herself? Was it her hairstyle that had changed? Were her eyes darker and more conscious of herself and her effect on her others? Will could not tell about individual features, only that the whole had shifted a degree from what he remembered.  
  
It seemed natural to make a little bow to her and then to cover it up with a self-conscious shrug and grin. “Lady Viola.” The title also seemed appropriate now.  
  
“How are you, Will?” Her voice was warm yet had never seemed so distant. She sat down and as she did so, she arranged the folds of her skirts with a practiced adjustment that Will only noticed because he had never seen her do it before.  
  
“I’m very well, and very glad to see you again,” he replied, “though I thought it would be before this. I had not expected you to remain in the south so long.” He accepted a cup of tea from Lady Rotherham.  
  
“Yes,” agreed Viola, “I have been away a very long time, haven’t I? Indeed, I rather wish I had come back earlier.”  
  
“Why’s that, love?” inquired her mother. “Didn’t you enjoy yourself at Filey?”  
  
Viola pursed her lips. “Oh, Filey was delightful. The Surrey countryside was really beautiful- gentle and warm and somehow greener than here in Yorkshire. Filey was not the problem. I suppose I simply did not like Priscilla as much as I thought I did when I had to spend all my time with her.”  
  
“Wait till you get married!” Lady Rotherham laughed impertinently.  
  
“It became increasingly clear,” Viola continued, “that she only wanted me around to listen to her talk about Sir Roland Taylor and to provide a foil for her when he visited.”  
  
Lady Rotherham frowned. “But Sir Roland was not in Surrey, surely?”  
  
Viola raised her eyebrows. “No, but he was at the Emerson House Party just over the border in Kent and he made several day trips. Besides, the Tanaquils and I did go to the party for a few days ourselves.  
  
“Well, that must have been pleasant! I hear it is an unmissable occasion.”  
  
Viola grimaced. “Hardly. Most tedious party I ever went to. Lady Emerson is always very kind to me when she happens to see me but it was all very dull. The girls are still in the school room, you see, and the Viscount only arrived on the last day. His brother’s abroad like Robbie. And I spent most of my time stuck behind hedges keeping a watch out for Lord and Lady Filey while Prissy ran off to meet Sir Roland in the summer house!”  
  
Lady Rotherham sniffed. “I find I am growing less fond of Lady Priscilla myself. To make you privy to her improper assignations! I am shocked you consented.”  
  
Viola shrugged irritably. “There was very little I could do, Mama, being her guest. And they are engaged to be married now, so there is little harm done in the end. But I hardly enjoyed being an accessory to vice!” She briefly met Will’s eyes over the top of her teacup and she bit her lip to hide a sudden grin. Will thought he knew what she was thinking and had to look away himself. A wave of sadness washed over him. This time last year it had been him and Viola holding hands in the more secluded pathways of a formal garden. He was sure that they had been more genuine and interesting than Lady Priscilla Tana-wotsit and her gallant Sir R T could even dream of being.  
  
Will had missed Lady Rotherham’s reply and Viola was speaking again.  
  
“So even if I had wanted to talk to the other guests- which I didn’t because all they could discuss was the Duke of Pennington’s engagement to Miss Dancy which you know I did not want to hear anything about- I couldn’t have done because I was stuck in the gardens all day! You can see how brown I am!”  
  
She stuck her arm out to demonstrate and Olivia, greatly excited, laid her own white arm against it. The contrast was stark. Viola folded her hands again in her lap and shook her head. “It was truly dreadful!” Then her lips curved into a grin as if she had found something amusing amidst all her frustration after all. “But the topiary was lovely!”  
  
While Lady Devenish explained in a low voice to Olivia what topiary was, Will stared at Viola. He wanted to know if there had been anyone at all whom she had preferred, but hardly knew where to begin. Eventually, he leaned back in his seat and said with careful casualness, “So, the Duke and Miss Dancy, Sir Roland and Lady Prissy… but nobody for Lady Viola?”  
  
She subjected him to her most piercing gaze, but before she could reply, Olivia burst in with, “She refused ever so many people, Will! Not just the Duke of Pennington, but there was Lord Farquhart as well and Lord Andrew Norris and Mr. Castle and-”  
  
“Hush, Livia, I’m sure Will doesn’t want to hear a list of the men Viola isn’t going to marry!” interrupted her mother.  
  
Will did not mind. Better than hearing the list of the ones she might marry.  
  
“Well,” Olivia defended herself stoutly, “she told me all about it briefly last night and she’s going to go into all the detail later. She was just telling me about a man who laughed at her at a ball when you arrived.”  
  
Viola bit her lip and appeared vexed though Will was not sure whether she was with him or with her sister and finally said, “Not at me, Liv, he laughed with me; and I shall finish the story tonight and tell you everything, if you will only be patient, dearest!” Then she turned back to Will and said, “I met many people whom I liked and admired, but as you can see, I am not engaged.” Her tone clearly implied that this was the end of the matter and Will felt sad. It really was over. She would not confide in him again.  
  
Viola might look forward to entertaining her sister with bedtime stories of rejected Dukes, ladies making assignations in formal gardens and a gentleman who laughed at a ball as if the entire season had been an amusing piece of fiction, but last year she would have told Will exactly what she had thought of it all. Now, now he had no idea. She was a closed book.  
  
The End, or perhaps The Beginning.


End file.
